Syracuse, NY -- The shirts, so boastful in their preseason exuberance, have been tucked away for several weeks. There is evidence they might soon join the wardrobe rotation again.

“Not yet,” Ryan Bartholomew, the senior center and captain of the Syracuse University football team, said Tuesday. “Not quite.”

Bartholomew and his fellow offensive linemen, caught up in their determination to transform themselves from zone-blocking patsies into smash-mouth sluggers in the off-season, had shirts made for themselves that proclaimed “We Run This Town.”

“We did it because we kind of had the mentality that we were going to run the ball,” left tackle Justin Pugh said.

The zeal lost its appeal when the offense opened the season throwing the ball over the yard while the sometimes-struggling ground game became an afterthought. So did the shirts.

“The first couple games we really didn’t run the ball, so everyone said we’re not wearing the shirts anymore until we actually earn them,” Pugh said. “So we still haven’t actually worn the shirts (again) yet because we still want to earn them.”

The time to get the shirts out of mothballs may be approaching. The Orange (6-2, 3-1) will enter Saturday’s noon game vs. Louisville (4-4, 1-2) in the Carrier Dome averaging a solid 152 rushing yards per game, up 25.4 yards per game from last season. Senior tailback Delone Carter, who failed to surpass 100 yards in SU’s first three games, has done it in four of the last six games and is on pace to surpass 1,000 yards for the second consecutive season.

While SU’s passing game has tailed off considerably since a red-hot start, the ground game – specifically the kind of power rushing attack that prompted the shirt-buying spree – has taken center stage.

“We work on it,” Bartholomew said by way of explanation. “The emphasis we put on it in the preseason, that doesn’t go away. Our emphasis is to run the ball. Even early in the season when we were passing we still wanted to run the ball deep down inside. We work on it, and it is finally showing out on the field.”

The emergence of the ground game combined with SU’s superb defense has given head coach Doug Marrone the luxury of playing the field-position game since the Big East season commenced.

The Orange is averaging only three more carries per game (37.5-34.3) in conference play than it did during its nonconference schedule, but the numbers are skewed by a 45-14 loss to Pittsburgh, a game in which SU trailed 28-7 at the half and was forced to abandon the run. Syracuse averaged 42 carries and 165.7 rushing yards in victories over South Florida, West Virginia and Cincinnati

“Every week we try to go out and be as physical as we can,” Pugh said, “because good things happen when you are able to run the ball.”

Pugh said early opponents knew that SU had made a renewed commitment to run the ball this season and reacted accordingly.

“I think when we first started out everyone saw that we were going to be like this smash-mouth team, we were going to run the ball, and everyone loaded up the box on us,” he said.

The Orange responded to the crowd at the line of scrimmage by averaging 237.7 passing yards in its first three games.

“And then everyone saw that (quarterback Ryan) Nassib was throwing the ball and we had some deep threats,” Pugh said, “so they started to respect that.”

And once they backed off, the ground game hit its stride. Pugh said the improvement is the result of defenses playing the run honestly, the backs playing lights out and he and three fellow first-time starters meshing.

“The backs are making the reads, the quarterback is carrying out the fakes and the receivers are blocking downfield,” Pugh said. “Everyone’s kind of been picking up what they’ve been doing.”

Especially the line.

“It’s a lot better,” Carter said. “They did a lot of growing up real fast.”

Marrone, who has spent considerable time working with the line along with assistant coach Greg Adkins, has noticed the maturation but firmly believes the group still has a long way to go.

“They’re getting better,” he said. “Are they going at a pace where as a coach you look at it and say we are where we need to be? Absolutely not. Basically we’ve really just touched the surface of where we want to be.”

Where the linemen wanted to be when they went shopping for shirts was running this town. They’re not there. Not quite. Not yet. But they’re getting closer.